Dabke 2020: Folk and Pop Sounds of Syria

Sublime Frequencies; 2009

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Most of what we hear about Syria dribbles to us in news reports, and most of those reports are really about Israel, Lebanon, or Iraq. As a result, Americans grow up with a distorted view of Syria, seeing it as a satellite orbiting the Axis of Evil and a regional bully with little regard for, say, the lives of ordinary Lebanese people. And at least as far as its government is concerned, there's some truth to that image. Bashar Al-Assad wouldn't exactly be cover material for Democracy & Human Rights Magazine, if such a publication existed, but behind him and his cohort there's a whole Syria we never get to see, a place of abundant entrepreneurial spirit and immense cultural heritage spanning millennia-- Syria is the railing on the cradle of civilization.

In the country's agricultural Northeast lies the city of Hassake (also transliterated Al-Hasakah and several other ways). It's a sizable town, but it's also a bit out of the way, straddling a tributary of the Euphrates that spends part of the year as a muddy wadi and hugging the inner curve of the Fertile Crescent. The population is a mix of Kurds, Assyrians, and Syrian Arabs, and it's no surprise the area produced a potent musical amalgam. That's what the music of Omar Souleyman is-- a modernized blend of old musics that collide in the modern Middle East. He draws from Kurdish and Turkic music, Iraqi choubi, and the dabke, a broad regional Arab folk style that grew out of a celebratory line dance developed by Levantine builders seeking an efficient way to stamp down the materials used to make a wattle-and-daub roof.

The future-past implications of the title Dabke 2020 could hardly be more perfect for describing Souleyman's wild, buzzing Arab New Wave. This disc compiles music recorded between 1998 and 2008 and released on cassette in Syria, and builds on Sublime Frequencies' first Souleyman compilation, 2007's Highway to Hassake, which was reissued on vinyl this year. It opens with its least party-worthy track, "Atabat", named for its style of sung poetry. Souleyman cries out in the melismatic Arabic mawaal style and is answered alternately by soulful saz solos and a blistering, progged-out synthesizer. The synthesizer's nasal tone takes center stage on the next track, blazing over the machine-gun drum programming-- for a lot of Western listeners, that wall of sharp-toned, constantly fluttering synth will be a little too much to take. If you're not already used to Arabic pop music, Souleyman is bound to be something of an acquired taste.

That said, there are a couple of tracks that don't require much acclimatization, including the two that close the record. "Laqtuf Ward Min Khaddak (I Will Pick a Flower From Your Cheek)" has a rhythm track like a hyperspeed Middle Eastern "Knight Rider" theme, and the dust storm swirl of synthesizer uses a mellower tone that's a sympathetic companion for Souleyman's husky baritone. Closer "Kaset Hanzal (Drinking From the Glass of Bitterness)" nearly brings things full circle to "Atabat" with its slow organic percussion and mixture of roughly scraped violin and synthesizer. Western listeners with a keen sense of audio adventure should have no problem feeling the groove of Souleyman's future folk and should take Dabke 2020 as what it is: a chance to know the music of a people politics has long kept at arm's length.